Dharamshala International Film Festival 2019 to kick off on 7 November; Gitanjali Rao's Bombay Rose to close event

The eighth edition of Dharamshala International Film Festival (DIFF) will be held from 7 to 10 November 2019 in McLeod Ganj, Dharamshala. The film festival will be attended by the likes of Adil Hussain, Ekta Mittal, Gurvinder Singh, Kislay, Lijo Jose Pellissery, Priya Sen, RV Ramani, and Vinod Kamble as well as American filmmaker Jesse Alk, Japanese director Kazuhiro Soda, and Swiss filmmaker Samuel Weniger. DIFF will showcase an eclectic mix of independent features, documentaries, shorts and animation films from India and around the world. While Eeb Allay Ooo! by Prateek Vats will open the festival,  Gitanjali Rao’s feature animation, Bombay Rose , has been selected as the closing film. Gurvinder Singh’s latest feature film Khanaur (Bitter Chestnut) is this year’s Spotlight on Himachal. [caption id=“attachment_7542021” align=“alignnone” width=“825”]  Poster of Bombay Rose (left), a still from Jallikkattu (centre), Adil Hussain conducting an acting workshop[/caption] The lineup also includes Lijo Jose Pellissery’s acclaimed Malayalam film Jallikkattu , Aise Hee , Archana Phadke’s About Love and Ekta Mittal’s Birha.  The international fiction and documentary features include: Another Day Of Life (by Raúl de la Fuente, Damian Nenow, Poland/Spain), For Sama ( by Edward Watts, Waad Al-Khateab, UK), God Exists, Her Name is Petrunya (by Teona Strugar Mitevska, Macedonia/ France/ Belgium), Golden Age (by Beat Oswald, Samuel Weniger, Switzerland), Heimat is a Space in Time (by Thomas Heise, Germany), Inland Sea (by Kazuhiro Soda, Japan), Last Night I Saw You Smiling (by Kavich Neang, Cambodia), Mafak (by Bassam Jarbawi, Palestine/ USA/ Qatar), Pariah Dog (by Jesse Alk, USA), Song Without a Name (by Melina León, Peru/Spain/USA), Tehran: City of Love (by Ali Jaberansari, Iran/UK/Netherlands), The Best Thing You Can Do With Your Life (by Zita Erffa, Germany), The Dalai Lama – Scientist (by Dawn Gifford Engle, USA), Varda by Agnés (by Agnés Varda, France) and Vitalina Varela (by Pedro Costa, Portugal). In a separate category, DIFF will present short films – Chintu, Everything is Fine, Gadhedo, Laddoo, Maa Tuki, and Rogan Josh. Indian feature film directors Ekta Mittal, Gurvinder Singh, Kislay, Lijo Jose Pellissery, Priya Sen, R.V. Ramani, and Vinod Kamble will be present. Hussain will be conducting an acting workshop. Talking about this year’s line-up at DIFF, Festival Director Ritu Sarin said, “Every year, we try and stay true to the same principles that we set out for DIFF when we started eight years ago: to select films that combine a deeply personal vision with themes that resonate with our times. This year is no different, and hopefully, our line-up, which has been carefully and painstakingly curated, will showcase some of the incredible diversity of filmmaking talent on offer in the world today. DIFF is also a place where filmmakers and film lovers can interact in an informal yet engaged way, and with our move back to the Tibetan Institute of Performing Arts this year, where all of DIFF’s screenings and events will be contained within close distance of each other, we hope to create an even more intimate space for such exchanges."